Taking retrieve to deliver to a spot

Once my puppies will retrieve to hand I then want to also have them retrieving to a spot. This you can see more of in the “put your toys away” part of the clicks and tricks. You can see me working through this with Nick who was a lot slower to pick up the idea of fetch and was very possessive. Leo was naturally a very possessive puppy as well, but the difference of having him at 8 weeks old and imprinting sharing made it much easier to teach vs Nick who was 2 months older when I got him. With Nick I actually taught this first and then added in having him deliver to my hand as his possession made it easier for him to deliver to a place first where he kept some distance from my hands. Emily had no possession issues at all and was a puppy with a natural retrieve. So don’t feel frustrated or bad if it takes you some time to teach your puppy to retrieve as this can be very challenging with some dogs.

Using these techniques you can also shape your puppy to play with toys if they only like food and won’t play with toys. Since this is all about getting the clicks and treats you are using food drive. But once the dog associates these objects with the game they will want to fetch them and over time that develops into a real joy of fetching.